Previous generation movement monitoring and fitness tracking devices generally enabled only a tracking of activity that accounts for total calories burned. One issue with currently available fitness tracking devices is that they do not account for the performance state of the user in a scientific, user-specific way. Another issue is that currently available solutions do not account in a precise manner for the health and performance benefits of sustained activity.
Additionally, understanding the effects of physical activity on biological age is becoming more important to many health conscious consumers. Biological age is essentially a person's actual age weighted by factors effecting that person's longevity. For example, factors such as gender, ethnicity, health, eating habits, stress levels, sleep habits, and exercise habits may increase or decrease a person's life expectancy. Biological age may change over time based on changes to any of these factors. Currently available technologies typically only measure biological age based on user input, and are not capable of tracking or monitoring biological age over time based on both user input and measured parameters. In particular, heart rate variability is a measurable parameter and is known to correlate to physiological resilience and behavioral flexibility, which are both important factors in determining biological age. However, currently available technologies do not leverage heart rate variability measurements, or other biological age determining factors measurable by activity monitoring devices, that could be used to semi-automate biological age tracking.
In view of these drawbacks, there exists a long-felt need for fitness monitoring devices capable of combining user input with measured factors, including heart rate variability, to display and track changes in biological age over time.